Design Thinking Defined

MIND THE METHODOLOGY GAP

Hello again Humantific Readers. In this our last post of 2017 we are by popular request reposting our Design Thinking definitions that have previously appeared in many of our previous LinkedIn blog posts.

As the year comes to a close what we see around the subject of Design Thinking in the marketplace is alot of smoke and mirrors occurring that have confused zillions of people. The design community itself has created much of the confusion and unfotunately clarity leadership from the direction of graduate design education in particular has been less then ideal. Many have conflated Design Thinking Philosophy with Design Thinking Methodology, when in reality, one is not the other.

Humantific seems to be among only a few practices stepping up to point out that Design Thinking cannot be defined philosophically as an open aperature problem solving approach if the actual methods are assumption-based presuming/recognizing only product, service and experience challenges and outcomes. It is no secret that many diverse challenges in organizations and in societies exist that have nothing to do with creating more products, services or experiences. Any skilled methodologist can tell you that open apperture methods and assumption-based methods are two different things. They have different starting points and different outcomes.

This seems elementary but in fact is the central confusion in the marketplace presently, due in large measure to the slow methodology R&D adaptation of the graduate design schools over the course of that last decade. The spinning and selling of philsophy as methodolgy has led to a now widespread Hocus-Pocus effect around the subject of Design Thinking.

The good news is that with organizational leaders becoming more knowledgeable, more savy the Hocus-Pocus Era of Design Thinking is ending. We are optimistic that a new Methodolgy Ethics Era is dawning.

As a practice we are already embracing that era.

[PS: If you are fed up with the Hocus-Pocus Era of Design Thinking and would like to join us in the future feel free to send us an email: kickitup (at) humantific (dot) com]